Wind turbines.

perfect11s said:
Against anything that dosent work properly and takes money off the poor and gives to the rich which is what windmills do at the moment!!!! wonders also what efect it has on the rural tourism industry I personaly used to love going to wales, for peace and soiltude now I find it depresing, every hill top and valley are littered with these horrors..
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I don't know what the figures are for how turbines have affected tourism in particular areas, however one of the sites near where I live has a visitor centre which is very popular with both locals and visitors. The energy company provides apprenticeships for young people to train to become engineers etc aswell as the associated jobs with the maintenance of the turbines, access roads etc. There is also now a dedicated cycle path through the site along the same route as the road which is very popular with cyclists.
 
People with pacemakers can't live near them? That's a new one on me and on my resident power engineer - proof please?
 
perfect11s said:
Against anything that dosent work properly and takes money off the poor and gives to the rich which is what windmills do at the moment!!!! wonders also what efect it has on the rural tourism industry I personaly used to love going to wales, for peace and soiltude now I find it depresing, every hill top and valley are littered with these horrors..
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Spot on!

On holiday in Maldives and considering they are near the equator for solar energy they were looking at renewables I mean 365 days a year sunshine but no renewables??. BUT they were concerned that the chinese who would manufacture panels might not be prepared to remove them and take them away if they didnt work properly. 30 years ago on a visit to Delhi the air was dusty and dirty.Three years ago I was shocked at the smog etc dirt up nose/ears etc and coal fired industry etc has moved in with all our manufacturing and industry. China has green rivers too. How many TVs and computers have we all got now? Germany extended its nuclear plants to keep running and only 16% of their power is renewable its all a big con.
When plastic milk cartons go back to renewable glass bottles I will then believe in green things.

The only people making money out of windfarms/digesters etc are landowners and unfortunately they are in our lovely countryside(or sea too).
 
3 on the farm where our horses are. Horses never looked at them and we ride right under them. Yu get used to the noise after a while.
 
Why can't people with pacemakers live near them? I know of a fair few people with pacemakers who live close to them (within a mile!).

My horses are within a stones throw of 5 giant ones, theres no noise, nor are there any problems generated by them. I don't understand these NIMBYs, better off to have them in your view line than a big power station. I hate overhead powerlines, as do a lot of people, there aren't petitions to remove them though or so stop the companies from using them!

Surely it's better to find electric through renewable sources than it is to continue to use up the oil which eventually will run out - then what do we do?! Now is the time to experiement and improve our renewable sources, while we still have the oil to supply the majority of us. Nothing starts off perfect, but you have to agree to the initial types for them to trial them and improve them.

There's always going to be people who hate them and would obviously much rather use up all the oil, then, I don't know, sit in the dark with no electric(?), no car since you couldn't use petrol or diesel to run it ... you get the idea. I'd rather them experiment now, and who cares if they're close to your horses, the won't affect them. I can hack down a bridlepath and ride between them, the turbines are big enough to make artic lorries look like matchbox toys, finger nail size.

Oh, and I'm in greenbelt too.
 
I'd prefer to see them rather than lines of pylons across a field but a problem I have with them is that they aren't efficient enough - they can't be used when there's not enough wind or when there's too much wind and we would need to cover the entire country in them for them to produce the power we really need. I think at the minute it's a case of a few people making money out of them. There are other ways of producing energy - how about the gases produced by good old cow muck? I'm sure I've read that you can generate power that way, and I'm sure I've heard of a power station fuelled by burning straw too.
 
and theres the millions of cubic metres of concrete, one of the most polluting substances on the globe, that it takes to put up the big turbines. Nice.....

I dont mind them in a flat (can I say boring) landscape as they can add interest, but in a naturally varied and scenic hilly one they destroy all sense of the scale of the hills. They also are completely uniform, so one valley looks exactly like the rest once they are installed in both

And why the hell do they have to be white....like caravans they should all be Moss Green in my opinion, if they have to be white for aerial things to avoid them then they shouldnt be up there in the first place.

Geothermal,solar, tidal, hydro, offshore wind, biomass, there are plenty of good ways of making renewable energy that dont screw the landscape.

BTW electric pylons are not neon white 100m tall on top of hills normally, so they have a lesser impact but also a greater benefit directly to the people who have them (just about everyone). Unlike turbines which are subsidised by the poor masses for the benefit of the wealthy and businesses who can afford the initial outlay. Anything witha payback period is reserved for those who can afford to invest and wait, unless its solar with a dodgy rent a roof scheme.
 
What annoys me is the fact that the Greens claim it's free energy because it's not belching out smoke at the point of generation.
We aren't supposed to know about the thousands of tonnes of concrete in the foundations or the destruction in China where they mine the rare earth minerals.
If it was not for the mahoosive subsidy for them they would not be getting built- same with solar panels.
I would much prefer an honest direct approach of we are taking your tax's for alternative energy generation the the hand wringing green approach
Gonna lie down now as I am a miserable old git!
 
perfect11s said:
I think you should have a meter fitted so when they are working you get electric other times you should be useing candles!! Hope the cheque makes up for people hateing you and despoiling the countryside!!!!
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People can hate us all they want, to be honest if people do hate us for doing something that may help future generations that's their own business.

Oh and we have a generator powered by tractor for when candles are needed... candles are a birthday treat :D

We also DIDNT get the wind turbines. If actually read the post I made, you would have seen that. We are not big, greedy, wealthy land owners... we are hard working farmers and they approached us about having them put on our land. We had little or no input in the whole matter, we left in the hands of the turbine company.

Sometimes I think people shoot themselves in the foot, the next most feasible option is nuclear and personally Id rather see some turbines that dont cause pollution than a nuclear plant that could potentially cause unimaginable damage.... But there that is the people's choice.
 
Its all very well some people on here saying 'oh the horses don't mind them, they get used to them'. Fine; yours might, but horses are not a uniformity; I have a normally really sensible and laid back mare, but when she sees anything like those bird scarer windmills in fields she goes totally beserk, I have had one or two really hairy rides where she has totally lost the plot and pretty much run/leapt home with me, frightening cars on the way. I am a competant and experienced rider but could do nothing with her. I have seen similar reactions in other horses. This is a visceral reaction, she does not get used to them so I was very concerned to hear that a 125m turbine is being built right on the side of one of the few bridleways I have near my farm (this area has dangerous roads and fast traffic). So please do not belittle the views of those who have serious concerns for their safety.
 
Ollie's Mum said:
I'd prefer to see them rather than lines of pylons across a field but a problem I have with them is that they aren't efficient enough - they can't be used when there's not enough wind or when there's too much wind and we would need to cover the entire country in them for them to produce the power we really need. I think at the minute it's a case of a few people making money out of them. There are other ways of producing energy - how about the gases produced by good old cow muck? I'm sure I've read that you can generate power that way, and I'm sure I've heard of a power station fuelled by burning straw too.
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Just so you know ... there is a big fuss going on because these monsters need conecting to the grid so they are also proposing
more pylons !!!! so windmills +pylons... great so we burn all the straw to make power what happens to the price of animal bedding???????? Nuclear is the only way for clean reliable power ....
 
Whats the difference then with a low flying helicoptor and a wind turbine blades???

Re Nuclear we have had for many years no problem. Its clean. Ask any nuclear expert and Chernobyl was badly built, and Japan on earthquake zone. UK is not

My horse I know would be brilliant but I can understand why some horses wouldnt like them. Our tourist industry is ruined by those horrid blots on the landscape. I wouldnt buy a house near them if I could help it. Great sympathy for the poster there is very little redress. Good luck though.
 
Dave282B said:
What annoys me is the fact that the Greens claim it's free energy because it's not belching out smoke at the point of generation.
We aren't supposed to know about the thousands of tonnes of concrete in the foundations or the destruction in China where they mine the rare earth minerals.
If it was not for the mahoosive subsidy for them they would not be getting built- same with solar panels.
I would much prefer an honest direct approach of we are taking your tax's for alternative energy generation the the hand wringing green approach
Gonna lie down now as I am a miserable old git!
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I think you are a sensible old git !!!:D For years I was out of step on this, but Im impressed people can see whats realy happening and are openly questioning all the lies we have been fed , about climate change which is a hook for junk science, and failed politcians to get rich not to mention people with very dodgey poilitcal ideals to get a voice, goverments to levey new taxes and control people...
 
indie999 said:
Whats the difference then with a low flying helicoptor and a wind turbine blades???

Re Nuclear we have had for many years no problem. Its clean. Ask any nuclear expert and Chernobyl was badly built, and Japan on earthquake zone. UK is not

.
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Yes havent the anti nuclear lot done a good job!!! the tecnolgy has improved vastly since Chernoble was built cooing systems are now passive and largely fail safe, unlike fukashima which relied on pumps to cool the reactors, what we need is new nuclear stations, and hopefully as they get thorioum reactors to work which is even safer and canot be used to make bombs, google deaths from nuclear power!!! its a tiny number !!!!!
poor Japanesse the tidal wave killed thousands and all people can remember is the nuclear acident and a few square kms rendered useless....
 
Re Nuclear we have had for many years no problem. Its clean. Ask any nuclear expert and Chernobyl was badly built, and Japan on earthquake zone. UK is not


this might be true...............but when they do go wrong they go wrong big time, whilst with windturbine blowing up like the one in scotland does not affect that many people..........it was very high wind for a start and when they do go wrong we as in the whole of uk and europe will not have to worry about the radioactive fall out.

we got fall out in the uk from chernobyl!

the whole world needs to rethink how and what we use for energy, coal and fossil fuels will not be around for ever, there are other types of renewable energy, including some sea power devices which can actually store the enerygy and the reharvest to drive the turbines to make the electicity when there are no waves.

renewables are in there enfancy.................we need to be patient, ok you don't like wind turbine would you like to have a nuclear power station in the fields instead?

also don't forget that once the nuclear power station is old it has to be decomissioned that also costs money, we will have to deacy the fuel rods for decades

there is no perfect solution, but may be using less electricity to start with would be a good idea:)
 
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perfect11s said:
... great so we burn all the straw to make power what happens to the price of animal bedding????????
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Errrr we grow crops to get the straw, it's not going to run out and I'm pretty sure that there already is a straw fired power station on the go which doesn't seem to have led to a shortage of animal bedding! It's not something that would take over the world, just a suggestion for another source of power! :confused:
 
indie999 said:
Spot on!

The only people making money out of windfarms/digesters etc are landowners and unfortunately they are in our lovely countryside(or sea too).
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True, we are currently gaining about £20/week on feed in tariff with our solar on the roof, but the best is the piping hot water and essentially free electricity during the day. Takes a bit of a change of routine to take advantage of it eg baking in the electric oven on a sunny day and not turning the washing machine /dishwasher on till the sun's up, I can also tumble dry the socks and smalls for free - takes forever to hang them out on the line.
 
Dubsie said:
True, we are currently gaining about £20/week on feed in tariff with our solar on the roof, but the best is the piping hot water and essentially free electricity during the day. Takes a bit of a change of routine to take advantage of it eg baking in the electric oven on a sunny day and not turning the washing machine /dishwasher on till the sun's up, I can also tumble dry the socks and smalls for free - takes forever to hang them out on the line.
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Yes same madness as windmills... great .... just the people who havent got them are losing and paying more on there bills to subsidise people who have them !!!!! cost of power ex conventional powerstation eg gas approx 5p per unit, solar feed in tariff 43p per unit!!!!
 
Well before I moved to this village there a site identified for a wind farm. The village got onto the papers and blamed the farmer for being greedy and destroying the value of the village when people had paid a lot of money for the houses. For now it's been put on hold
 
In Scotland, we're getting plagued by these horrid, ugly, pointless things. In my area especially its getting totally out of hand - every farmer or land owner is chucking them up (I assume they get grants or something). We just had one go up just over the hill from us which my horses can clearly see, lucky we cant hear it though. I went out to a property today (work related) and it was situated close to a wind farm - the noise was dreadful. How on earth they put up with it I have no idea! I know of a friend who lives near some as well and suffered terribly with the noise and the shadow flicker they cause.

I absolutely hate the things, there's millions of them going up all the time in our area. Scotland getting more of them than anywhere else in the UK which is a joke, why should we?! Our beautiful landscapes are being ruined.

Problem is our council is a joke at advising people of the planning applications for them so nobody gets much chance to object! They put a small ad in the local paper (local as in the tiny town paper which barely anyone reads, Ive never bought it!) and on their website so you have to effectively search through their website once a week to make sure you dont miss the week-long gap when you're allowed to object. They SHOULD advise everyone effected by post IMO.
 
MagicMelon said:
In Scotland, we're getting plagued by these horrid, ugly, pointless things. In my area especially its getting totally out of hand - every farmer or land owner is chucking them up (I assume they get grants or something). We just had one go up just over the hill from us which my horses can clearly see, lucky we cant hear it though. I went out to a property today (work related) and it was situated close to a wind farm - the noise was dreadful. How on earth they put up with it I have no idea! I know of a friend who lives near some as well and suffered terribly with the noise and the shadow flicker they cause.

I absolutely hate the things, there's millions of them going up all the time in our area. Scotland getting more of them than anywhere else in the UK which is a joke, why should we?! Our beautiful landscapes are being ruined.

Problem is our council is a joke at advising people of the planning applications for them so nobody gets much chance to object! They put a small ad in the local paper (local as in the tiny town paper which barely anyone reads, Ive never bought it!) and on their website so you have to effectively search through their website once a week to make sure you dont miss the week-long gap when you're allowed to object. They SHOULD advise everyone effected by post IMO.
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they should but know what most people would say so they try and sneak them through before protest groups get going, The other problem will be when the subsedys end!! aparenty places that tryied them before us like america there are hundeds of the things rusting away abandoned and unsafe I hope we have something in place that the owners have to remove them and all the concrete and buildings once this madness is over...
 
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With the proliferation of wind turbines in increasingly marginal locations, setback distances as advised by the BHS (http://www.bhs.org.uk/Riding/Riding_Off_Road/Latest_Information/Wind_Farms.aspx) and in the government's own Planning Policy Statement 22 are being disregarded by wind farm developers, who insist that 150 metres is adequate.

The BHS 2011 survey of their membership totally contradicted the British Wind Energy Association's (recently renamed RenewableUK) assertion that horse riders don't experience problems with turbines.

I find it staggering that those riders who experience no problem with turbines can be so dismissive of the concerns of others, and moreover so indifferent to the threat to young, inexperienced riders on young horses.

The owner of a stud, livery yard and riding school near me, told me (when I was surveying the attitude of equestrians to wind farms) that even one of her older horses is reluctant to pass an IRRIGATION windmill.

The BHS survey?

"Of five people who have actually fallen off at least once, 3 required hospitalisation and their horse was unable to be ridden after the incident."

"People who encountered no problems stated they were riding horses who were accustomed to the turbines or riding very steady older horses. They also acknowledged that they could understand how other peoples horses may be upset by the presence of a turbine and are aware of incidents occurring."

"In the particular instance just given for West Yorkshire, over half the members of Haworth and Oxenhope riding club reported experiencing problems, this being over 100 incidents."

There's a lot of good sense emerging now, as exemplified by this Planning Inspector's decision with regard to the potential impact of turbines on horses...

"One of the two main issues concerned the effect the appeal proposal would have on highway safety, by virtue of its effect on horses… The British Horse Society’s evidence is that shadows of the moving blades of wind turbines, and the sight of the moving blades, alarm horses, causing disconcerting and unpredictable behaviour by the horse… I have no reason to doubt any of the submissions by the wind farm developer, but the weight of the evidence leads me to the view that passing horses are likely on occasion to be alarmed by the sight or shadow of moving wind turbines… The appellant points out that vehicles are common on the local roads, that vehicles can be more disturbing than wind turbines are to horses and says that, in his view, horses used on the roads should be sufficiently resilient to cope with such hazards. But horses are sometimes disturbed by passing traffic and it seems to me that to add one hazard to another cannot be other than harmful."
 
Ollie's Mum said:
Errrr we grow crops to get the straw, it's not going to run out and I'm pretty sure that there already is a straw fired power station on the go which doesn't seem to have led to a shortage of animal bedding! It's not something that would take over the world, just a suggestion for another source of power! :confused:
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The demand for straw/wood chips for power station has already led to a significant rise in the cost of both and decrease in availability in some areas. It is exacerbated by the increase in the price of chemical fertilisers so meaning farmers are more likely to chops and plough in the straw to retain the nutrients than sell it thus depleting the soil.
 
Having hacked around wind turbines, I can honestly say they don't bother me. I don't think they are any more a blight on the landscape than towns are!
 
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